The present invention relates to a beverage manufacturing apparatus which extracts tea beverage using leaf tea.
In Japan, taste, aroma, flavor of tea beverage have heretofore been valued. The taste, aroma, and flavor of the tea beverage are largely influenced by an amount of leaf tea such as green tea of medium quality, temperature·amount extracting hot water, soaking time, that is, a way of making tea. Therefore, sufficient attentions and cares need to be taken in extracting fragrant tea beverage.
On the other hand, in recent years, a tea beverage manufacturing machine for extracting tea beverage from hot water and leaf tea has been developed. In this tea beverage manufacturing machine, predetermined amounts of hot water and leaf tea are fed to an extraction machine, the leaf tea is steamed in the extraction machine for a predetermined time, tea beverage is extracted with high concentration, and the extracted tea beverage is kept to be warm in a heating cabinet. Moreover, when a user or a provider, that is, a person who uses the tea beverage manufacturing machine performs a predetermined operation, a predetermined amount of high-concentration tea beverage is supplied in a cup together with hot water for dilution from the heating cabinet (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-197023).
However, in the above-described tea beverage manufacturing machine, extracted tea beverage is pooled until it is served to the user. Therefore, there has been a problem that the taste, aroma, flavor, and color are degraded with an elapse of time. Then, the tea beverage is extracted without pooling the predetermined amount every time the beverage is served. In this case, a time of about one or two minutes is required for sufficiently extracting the tea beverage from the leaf tea, and therefore there occurs a problem that the serving to the user delays.
Above all, the tea beverage manufacturing machine has such a system that the high-concentration tea beverage is extracted, kept warm, diluted, and served. Therefore, it has been remarkably difficult to realize the taste, aroma, and flavor of the tea beverage with high quality, which is to be recommended to the user by a server in accordance with user's request.